


All The World's A Dig Site

by Entity_Sylvir



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Actor AU, M/M, actors with an RPF fandom AU, fake article, fandom and shipping, graphics in story, meta (so much meta)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entity_Sylvir/pseuds/Entity_Sylvir
Summary: (Don’t) Rest in Peace follows the adventures of the gun (and sword!) toting Roland Carnegie (played by actor Laurent Dauphiné), historical scholar and treasure-hunting archeologist. Joined after the first episode by two partners Marcel Durand (Jord Moreau) and Adrian Collias (Nikandros Cora), Roland and his team travel Europe on the trail of lost or legendary sites and objects. In its early seasons, DRiP gained a decently-sized, but not massive following on LiveJournal. All combinations of the main Roland/Marcel/Adrian trio were explored in pairs or sometimes all together, though no single preferred pairing dominated.In season 2, a new recurring character of Vik No-Last-Name (played by Damen Vasilias) was introduced, who got some fannish notice almost solely because people decided he was attractive enough to be shipped. The fact that actor Damen Vasilias was known to be openly bisexual also promoted a little further interest. Thus, a ship of Roland/Vik was born that had a small fandom following and minimal canon support.All of this would change in season 3.-In which everyone is in a show, that show has a fandom, and Damen and Laurent explode it.





	All The World's A Dig Site

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [an ocean full of change](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015982) by [tumsa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumsa/pseuds/tumsa). 



> First of all, many thanks to the incredible [tumsa](http://tumsa.tumblr.com/) who not only provided inspiration with her amazing social media AU (though this story isn't set quite in the same universe) but also made the poster for the show and helped me with the coding.  
>   
> Also thanks to [jove](https://joves-stash.tumblr.com/) who came up with the title of the tv show, and [veretianblue](http://veretianblue.tumblr.com/) who helped with editing and various things and also suggested Laurent's character name. Said name is a reference to the mistranslation when the Japanese Captive Prince website is [run through google translate](http://arsaces-of-akielos.tumblr.com/post/171741919235)).  
>   
> Some of the links below in the article are real! The real hyperlinks are in [purple](https://i.imgur.com/7Id2J0t.png) while the fake ones are in blue. All other images aside from the poster are made by me.

[](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page)

# (Don't) Rest In Peace

**[Fandom](https://arsaces-of-akielos.tumblr.com/post/177344132690/all-the-worlds-a-dig-site-entitysylvir)**  
  
---  
**Name:** |  (Don't) Rest in Peace  
**Abbreviation(s):** |  DRiP, or (D)RiP  
**Creator:** |  Vannes Garcia  
**Date(s):** |  2011-  
**Medium:** |  Television  
**Country of Origin:** |  United Kingdom  
**External Links:** | [(Don't) Rest in Peace on imdb](https://i.imgur.com/awQkAjr.png)  
**Click here for related articles on Fanlore.**  
  
| 

#### Contents  
  
---  
  
1 Characters
2 Fandom: Fictional Person Fiction (FPF) 2.1 Seasons 1-2 2.2 Season 3 Onward 2.3 Popular Tropes 
3 Fandom: Real Person Fiction (FPF) 3.1 Other Popular Characters (People) 3.2 Popular Tropes 
4 Notable Fanworks 4.1 FPF 4.2 RPF 
5 References
  
  
**(Don't) Rest in Peace** is a British television series that follows the adventures of the gun (and sword!) toting Roland Carnegie (played by actor Laurent Dauphiné), historical scholar and treasure-hunting archeologist. Joined after the first episode by two partners Marcel Durand (Jord Moreau) and Adrian Collias (Nikandros Cora), Roland and his team travel Europe on the trail of lost or legendary sites and objects. Each season arc generally follows the search for a single target, with a deeper conflict beginning in season 4 involving the repercussions of their methods and Roland’s rivals in the archeological community.

  


####  Characters

#####  Main

  * Roland Carnegie (Laurent Dauphiné), team leader


  * Marcel Durand (Jord Moreau), university academic, hired to head research


  * Adrian Collias (Nikandros Cora), treasure hunter, hired for the heavier lifting side of things


  * Cassandra Williams (Halvik Ivanov), private investigator


  * Carl Peterson (Makedon Andreas), Adrian’s treasure hunting mentor and frequent provider of information and advice to the team



#####  Recurring

  * James Stolar (Orlant Richard), Marcel's academic colleague


  * Vik (Damen Vasilias), shady provider of some unfortunately necessary services


  * Rachael Williams (Kashel Kirk), Cassandra’s hacker sister and sometime assistant


  * Felix Tucker (Pallas Sanna), rival treasure hunter, Celin’s partner


  * Celin Moufrigir (Ancel Lispon), rival treasure hunter, Felix’s partner


  * Adam Lybovski (Lazar Martin), rival archeologist whose motivations are more academic and less monetary than Felix and Celin's


  * Clark Vice (Paschal Harriss), eccentric collector


  * Frankie (Aimeric Chambers), black market antiquities dealer



  


####  Fandom: Fictional Person Fiction (FPF)

Season 1 Poster

#####  Seasons 1-2

In its early seasons, DRiP gained a decently-sized, but not massive following on LiveJournal. Much of fannish activity was centred around its main community DRiP_Fic which, despite its name, hosted not only fanfiction but also art, discussion posts, and a number of events. A second community RolandAfterDark was also active, geared more toward explicit/kink material. The same admin of RolandAfterDark also began DRiP_On_Me, the fandom kinkmeme.

Shipping was primarily slash. All combinations of the main Roland/Marcel/Adrian trio were explored in pairs or sometimes all together, though no single preferred pairing dominated. Tag statistics on DRiP_Fic[1] show that Roland/Adrian was the most popular, but only by a narrow margin. A number of side characters also challenged the mains in popularity, with the pairing of Adrian/Carl Peterson (Adrian’s old mentor with whom he’s implied to have an intriguing history, played by Makedon Andreas) actually slightly overtaking even Roland/Adrian in numbers. Another well-liked pairing was Marcel/James Stolar (Marcel’s colleague from his university who once made [a comment about Marcel’s pants](https://i.imgur.com/mN0sQgd.png) that fandom took and ran with, played by Orlant Richard). And het was not entirely left behind as all three mains were also shipped in turn with team's routinely consulted private investigator Cassandra Williams (played by Halvik Ivanov).

In the second half of season 2, a new recurring character of Vik No-Last-Name (played by Damen Vasilias) was introduced. A runner of weapons and other underground things that the main trio were forced to work with on occasion, he was a relatively minor character who got some fannish notice almost solely because people decided he was attractive enough to be shipped. The fact that actor Damen Vasilias was known to be openly bisexual also promoted a little further interest. Thus, a ship of Roland/Vik was born that had a small fandom following and minimal canon support.

All of this would change in season 3.

#####  Season 3 Onward

Season 3 saw a drastic shift in the fandom due to external factors. While the show itself continued on to good ratings and critical reception, in the week between the airing of episodes 3 and 4 an article went live that promptly exploded the internet. Laurent Dauphiné, who’d previously remained very private about his personal life, officially both came out in an interview and revealed that he was dating costar Damen Vasilias. After making very, very sure that this was not a prank, the fandom flailed some more and then reacted in great haste. It helped that episode 4 contained an appearance of Vik, only for 4:27 minutes (precisely) but a deep analysis of Damen and Laurent's performance in that 4:27 minutes was posted to DRiP_Fic in the light of the new information. And hence, though the biggest change in fandom was in the RPF side (see: RPF), Roland/Vik skyrocketed into place as the most popular pairing. This was also aided by the fact that Vik began to get some further development throughout this season, including being revealed as having been another former mentee of Carl Peterson before falling in with the criminal element. The other previously leading pairs continued to have some following, however, and Vik’s general rise in popularity as a character resulted in the development of a few additional pairings (notably Vik/Carl, as well as the foursome of Vik/Roland/Marcel/Adrian). With this increase in interest, as well as the existence of a more firm OTP to latch onto, the fandom as a whole swelled significantly in size, spawning a dedicated RolVik community, several others of various themes, a secret santa exchange, a big bang, and a kinkfic exchange (most now housed on tumblr and dreamwidth with the shift fandom was making away from livejournal).

There have been some controversies regarding Roland/Vik, including complaints about their lack of canonical base and pleas for separation of fiction from reality.[2] Despite those, today the DRiP FPF fandom is continuing strong on tumblr and ao3, as well as in a few old livejournal and dreamwidth communities that are still running, with a lean toward the Roland/Vik pairing but not to the exclusion of others.

#####  Popular Tropes

  * **Casefic:**
    * Stories mirroring the main season arcs, sometimes involving famous real-world targets (the library of Alexandria for one example has been the theme of multiple fics).
    * Popular among all fics of all pairing permutations of the main trio plus Vik and Cassandra.
  * **Supernatural casefic:**
    * An extension of the casefic trope, exploring the possibility of the trio truly running into unnatural forces as claimed by many of the legends they chase--a concept often suggested by the superstitious Adrian in canon and derided by the sceptical Marcel.
  * **Precanon training fic:**
    * Often about Adrian/Carl or, after season 3, Vik/Carl, but sometimes with OCs in the past of the other boys.
    * Exploring the boys’ backgrounds and pasts and how they learnt their trade.
  * **Downtime fic:**
    * The fandom nickname given to fluffy domesticity fics, set between hunts or in quiet times during hunts.
    * Popular with all pairings.
  * **Team Vik AU:**
    * AU premise where Vik is another of Roland’s partners.
    * Most popular with Roland/Vik, but also popular with Vik/Adrian with the idea that the two learnt under Carl together. Also sometimes with Vik/Marcel.
  * **Rival AU:**
    * AU premise where, instead of working together, one or both of Roland’s partners are instead his rivals.
    * Popular with all permutations of main trio, sometimes plus Vik.
    * Sometimes combined with the Team Vik AU, so that Vik is on Roland’s team while Marcel or Adrian aren’t. This version is popular as a Roland/Vik Marcel/Adrian double pairing.



  


####  Fandom: Real Person Fiction (RPF)

The DRiP fandom had a relatively small RPF side in the first two seasons, also housed on DRiP_Fic where both FPF and RPF were welcomed and encouraged. RPF Pairings generally mirrored the pairings of the actors’ fictional counterparts, with a femmeslash addition of Halvik/Kashel Kirk (who plays Cassandra Williams’s hacker sister Rachael). Another pairing not based in FPF was Damen/Nikandros, who were known to be close friends and who had done a number of popular interviews together.

However, with the aforementioned revelations of season 3 the previously extremely small pairing of Laurent/Damen ([one single fic](https://i.imgur.com/pag63MX.png) that had been written before the revelation has been archived for posterity, with its writer often acclaimed as a prophet) inevitably garnered a great amount of attention. Many DRiP fans who previously had not enjoyed RPF began to change their tune with the promise of a "canon" pairing, and some independent fans of Laurent Dauphiné and Damen Vasilias from their other work also joined the RPF fandom. A portion of those actually watched the show but others remained uninvolved in the FPF fandom, establishing DRiP RPF (or specifically just Laurent/Damen) as a somewhat separate entity from DRiP FPF. As a result of all this, the RPF fandom grew enough to match the FPF fandom in size, and it remains unclear today which is in fact larger.

There have also been controversies regarding Laurent/Damen, with some of the opinion that shipping a real RPF relationship is more acceptable while others say that writing fiction about a real relationship is invasive.[3] Another group still has denounced the shipping of the two of them with different people, to the rebuttal that RPF fandoms routinely slash actors involved in real heterosexual relationships and that a male/male couple isn’t any truly different.[4] But all in all, many fans are [fairly lighthearted](https://i.imgur.com/e0PB5Zp.png) about what having a real RPF relationship means for fandom.

#####  Other Popular Characters (People)

In addition to the main cast, a number of others regularly make appearances in RPF fic:

  * Auguste Dauphiné, Laurent’s older brother. A stuntman who Laurent has stated was the one to help him into the acting industry, Auguste is not involved in DRiP but has made several appearances at events with his brother. He also regularly tweets about how much he loves the show and how proud he is of Laurent, and is popular among DRiP fans as a result.[5]
  * Kastor Vasilias, Damen’s older half-brother. Kastor began as Damen's acting partner and fellow child star on the Disney channel, but left the industry at the age of 19. He is often portrayed in non-AU fic as having had a falling out with Damen and quitting acting as the result of various dramatic reasons, and periodically appears in AUs as a villain. In reality, Damen speaks fondly of his brother in interviews and the man himself has appeared on occasion at industry events along with their father, film writer Theomedes Vasilias.[6]
  * Jokaste Alphis, a model and known friend of Damen who appears regularly in his social media posts, long rumoured to be romantically linked with him. The rumours were never confirmed, however, and seem to have been denied by the reveal of his relationship with Laurent. She is often cast as Damen’s ex, sometimes with bad blood between them, though she now appears to be friends with Laurent according to social media. [7]
  * Berenger (last name unknown), the real-life boyfriend of other openly gay actor Ancel Lispon. Ancel is fairly private about his boyfriend and has not provided much information beyond him not being in the industry, but the existence of another "canon" couple leads the two to often appear in the background of fics of other pairings.[8]
  * Charls Freer, the byline on the article where Laurent came out and revealed his relationship with Damen. Little to no information is actually known about him, but his popularity is something of a fandom in-joke and he is often given cameos in Laurent/Damen AUs.



#####  Popular Tropes

  * **Get together:**
    * A staple among all pairings, but an especially dedicated trope for Laurent/Damen as the two have never told the full story of how their relationship began.
    * Many, many variations have been written, some which try to follow the hints that the two have given in interviews and some which deliberately explore unexpected or alternative possibilities.
  * **Filming fic:**
    * Stories exploring the reaction of actors to filming notable events in canon, or alternatively filming proposed scenes of particular natures in a theoretical future canon.
    * Found among all pairings.
  * **Set pranks fic:**
    * Popularised after Laurent Dauphiné complained in an interview about his co-stars Jord Moreau and Nikandros Cora fooling around on set.
    * Began in pairings between Laurent, Jord, and Nikandros, but grew readily to include Damen.
  * **RolVik becomes canon:**
    * A fictional version of the get together fic and the filming fic, centred around the premise that Roland/Vik is written into show canon and Damen and Laurent get together for real while filming romantic/sexy scenes.
    * Can also be found in other pairings with other FPF pairings becoming canon, but the trope is heavily dominated by Laurent/Damen.
  * **Wedding fic:**
    * Also a staple among all pairings, but again an especially dedicated trope for Laurent/Damen exploring their future potential wedding. The two of them have not announced a real engagement—yet!



  


####  Notable Fanworks

#####  FPF

  * [Even Indiana Jones Never Had This Much Fun](https://i.imgur.com/R9wX8aW.png) by palybae: an early Roland/Marcel/Adrian OT3 casefic
  * [Twisted](https://i.imgur.com/GXHcFif.png) by treasure_Hunter: the very first Roland/Vik fic, archived alongside the very first Laurent/Damen fic, mostly porn involving inappropriate use of guide ropes
  * Seventeen Minutes by notmyproblem: angsty pre-canon Vik/Carl history
  * [Ground Beans](https://i.imgur.com/nsNJhmj.png) by lamenheart: the Roland/Vik coffee shop AU (sort of)
  * The Red Stone by PranksOnSet: epic casefic, Marcel/Adrian pairing
  * Don’t Touch My Cake by Kraft: pioneer of the Team Vik AU, light casefic going into downtime fic, Roland/Vik
  * Four Bullets by canttouchthis: rival fic going into an AU of how the trio is formed, Roland/Marcel and Adrian/Carl
  * Touching The Sun by halyhaly: casefic romance, canon Roland/Vik get together fic exploring the heavy side of Vik’s criminal life and Roland coming to terms with it
  * The Real Roland/Vik by charlsy: nonfiction, analysis of all canon interactions between Roland and Vik and whether there’s any justified support for this pairing



#####  RPF

The overwhelmingly classic DRiP RPF fic is the epic Laurent/Damen series by user supacat. Titled [Captive Prince](https://i.imgur.com/Sidsy7I.png), it was termed the 'real royal AU'—a reference to the nickname of 'the royal couple' given to Laurent/Damen after fans noticed that Damen’s surname ‘Vasilias’ means ‘king’ in Greek, while Laurent’s surname ‘Dauphiné’ was the province of France whose title was used by the heir to the French throne. First posted on livejournal, it was moved to ao3 when the wordcount began to seriously grow and contains 3 main stories with a number of side shorts back at the writer’s blog. The story is set in a fictional world where Laurent is the Prince of a fantasy country named Vere (name taken from the name of his first canonical dig site) and Damen is the Prince of a fantasy country named Akielos (name taken from Carl’s canonical first dig site), and revolves around Damen being betrayed by his brother and given to Laurent as a slave. The series got initially popular as one of the first longfics of the new Damen/Laurent pairing explosion, but reached its peak during the posting of the second instalment where common reactions by readers came along the lines of 'THIS WAS SO MUCH MORE THAN I WAS EXPECTING' and ‘LAURENT'S CHARACTER OMG'. Today, it remains a fandom staple, commonly recced as a 'must-read' for the pairing. It has its own tag on tumblr which is frequently filled with live comments by new readers, often beginning on variations of 'wtf Laurent is so OOC why is this popular' to replies of 'just keep reading, you'll see'.

Once, when asked about his fans in an interview, Damen replied, “Oh those guys are amazing! Of course every show and every actor would be nowhere without the fans, and the ones DRiP has are really incredible. We all love how creative they are. I mean, just a few weeks ago I texted Kastor I might not be able to make it for drinks and he told me if I blew him off he'd poison dad and send me to my boyfriend in chains. _[laugh]_ ”[9] This answer caused many explosions when it went live as the last part seems to be a reference to the plot of Captive Prince, indicating that Damen and the others are not only aware of fandom and fanfiction but specifically of RPF too.

Other notable fanworks include:

  * Fifth Wall by Leecep: humour fic where all the actors get magically dumped into the show world and muddle their way through an expedition while meeting the characters along the way, includes Laurent/Damen though the pairing isn’t the focus
  * [Comes From A Bottle](https://i.imgur.com/GP1vKqx.png) by kingmaker: Damen/Nikandros with a side of Laurent/Damen and Laurent/Damen/Nikandros, crackfic where Nikandros dyes his hair blond, based on the fanon trope of Damen having a ‘blond kink’ that developed after a joke he made in an interview
  * White-Purple Streamers by yourkaste: Laurent/Damen wedding planning fic with shenanigans
  * Vannes Doesn’t Get Paid Enough For This by Adriana: Jord/Nikandros fic where they keep having sex on set and getting caught
  * [Clytemnestra’s Hand](https://i.imgur.com/QLvElQa.png) by carling: Laurent/Kastor, background Laurent/Damen infidelity fic that infamously sparked great controversy about character morality in RPF, but is generally heralded to be a very good story moral implications aside
  * [Abs and Stuff](https://i.imgur.com/pag63MX.png) by pellington: the very first Laurent/Damen fic, exemplifying the main source of Damen/Vik’s popularity at that time (namely how he looked without a shirt on)
  * Actor vs Character by marcels_left_elbow: art of every major character and their actor in interesting parallels
  * What Is La Mort de l'Auteur When The Author Is Life by lamenheart: nonfiction, essay on Laurent/Damen and Roland/Vik and what it means for fandom and derivative fiction



  


####  References

  1. ↑ ‘Comm Stats Summary’ on livejournal, 23rd December 2012
  2. ↑ ‘Unpopular Opinion Rant’ on tumblr, 18th May 2015
  3. ↑ ‘The Curious Case Of The DRIP Fandom’ on livejournal, 3rd March 2014
  4. ↑ ‘Enough with the multishipping hate’ on tumblr, 27th January 2016
  5. ↑ ‘THE BESTEST BRO roundup post’ on tumblr, 19th August 2015
  6. ↑ ‘Damen Vasilias Appears With Family On Red Carpet’ video, 14th June 2017
  7. ↑ ‘movie night!’ tweet, 24th February 2017
  8. ↑ ‘hi random question, who’s Berenger? I’ve seen him aro…’ on tumblr, 8th May 2014
  9. ↑ ‘Damen Vasilias (Don’t) Rest in Peace Season 6 Interview’ article, 12th July 2016



**Author's Note:**

> Once again, poster by the wonderful [tumsa](http://tumsa.tumblr.com/)! This mostly came about from pondering how the "real people" would react to "RPF" fic, which then ballooned into many piles of meta and barely even reached that stage. I may add a second part about the actors checking out their fandom.  
>   
> Find me on tumblr as [arsaces-of-akielos](http://arsaces-of-akielos.tumblr.com).


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